Twitter is a Cesspool and Other Things I Shouldn’t Say Aloud

I mean, you could also call this “something something social media neighborhoods blah blah,” but I have neither the brains nor the energy to come up with a title like that. So instead, I’m going to call it as I see it.

Twitter is a cesspool and our President is the Creature from the Twitter Lagoon.

I don’t care who you are, what your political leanings happen to be, you cannot continue to ignore the fact that Twitter is one motherfucking bully convention and the President of the United States practically lives there. Birds of a feather and so forth…

Looking at Social Media Neighborhoods

When social media started becoming popular among the Plebs, it was a golden era. We were kind to one another. We shared our days, our lunches and our pets. It was innocent. Even Twitter, albeit in short sentences.

But that was nearly a decade ago and those neighborhoods have sort of started to attract like-minded people to different areas of their platform. Twitter, for example, is filled with negative people who spend their days cyberbullying others, threatening women and generally being assholes.

And the biggest asshole of all seems to think that he’s the King Badass of Twitterdom, which, even if he was, that’s like being the biggest fucking salami at a vegetarian buffet. Who fucking cares? The Donald is slumming it, or he’s actually showing his true colors. It’s hard to know. The one thing that’s obvious from his tweets is that he knows what kind of God-awful people live in his neighborhood and he’s ok with it.

I’m not saying #AllTweeters, but there are enough waffle stompers in Toupeeland to make it an incredibly bad neighborhood. And Twitter knows it.

If you were a brand or even a human starting out with social media, the last fucking place you should be is Twitter. You might as well be throwing ad spend at a burning billboard that’s in the middle of nowhere and also it’s inside of a volcano. The leadership has tried and tried to get a hold on the problem (or so they say), but it just doesn’t get better.

The Twitterverse, my friends, is a plague on humanity.

But the Others Aren’t Much Better

About six months ago, I stopped following any of my Facebook friends who were on the “extreme” ends of things. Of course I want justice for black people who are being shot down in the streets like animals. Of course I want immigrant children (often asylum seekers) to be kept with their parents. I’m not a fucking monster.

But there’s a difference between raising awareness and becoming obsessed with a cause. My best friend in the world’s oldest kid loves pangolins. He adores them. And they’re adorable. But he doesn’t spend every fucking waking minute talking about pangolins. He’s got more to him than that. He’s seven and he has more dimension than a lot of the people I know on Trump Era social media.

I believe Facebook can be saved.

Twitter should be burned to the fucking ground.

Pinterest didn’t do anything to me.

Instagram? Love the photos of your breakfast.

Reddit. What are you even?

SnapChat, I don’t even understand you, so you’re gold for now.

But the problem we have, the big one, is that there are still echo chambers. There are still left-bookers and alt-right-blockers (is that even a term?), there are people who collect from all over the world just to be vile to others on a global scale. We have to recalibrate before it’s too late to save our own souls.

Dialing Back the Anxiety

I believe, though I have nothing to base this on besides observation, that the heart of this issue, the thing that’s ruining our neighborhoods isn’t the guy that forgets to mow his grass in 100 degree weather, it’s the anxiety level that social media is magnifying.

We, liberals and conservatives alike, became anxious when we realized somehow we were going to have a game show host for a President. And not a charming one like Reagan (who was actually an actor and may have had his own hair). After the election that brought Trump to the White House, we were all suddenly on The Apprentice, and he was firing people like crazy.

Of course, the firings weren’t as bad as the hirings.

He blew his Horn of Racists Summoning and gave tactless, witless troglodytes that believed they were superior to people of color, people with different beliefs and people who had completely intact prefrontal cortexes the impetus to come out of the shadows to where they had been banished. They had the fucking nerve to march on neighborhoods where people of color lived. They felt strong. They’re still not sorry or embarrassed. They’re spineless shitewads. Oh, and btw, they also live in the Twitterverse.

But the anxiety. We’ve been so afraid of what Trump might do that we’ve forgotten there are still things we can do on our own. We can feed that fucking anxiety or we can speak out, shield our friends and families when the Klan comes a-knockin’, say “No more. No more of your shit, you imbecilic bleeding hemorrhoids.”

AND WE CAN END TWITTER-LIKE SHITTINESS.

Sure, the bags full of dicks may move on to another platform, but we just have to keep saying no. “No, you can’t spoil my lovely brunch photos because I’m too happy telling people about my eggs. You can’t ruin this for me. You’re a Godless cretan and a shitstain on society. Get bent.”

As a marketer or freelancer, you can refuse to write their shit. I know money is important, but have you ever considered the state of your soul? If you look back, you’ll find me advocating for “work is work,” but since then I’ve realized how wrong I was. You can refuse to help them spread their hate with effective advertisements and divisive fake news ala Cambridge Analytica.

YOU have the power to end this. We’re a hive mind now because of social media, folks. Do we want those goose-fucking buffoons poisoning our well?